Dato' Sri Siti Nurhaliza - Anta Permana English Translation

Songwriters: Ezra Kong and Hael Husaini

Anta Permana / Ad Infinitum

Stream of consciousness the heart’s melody

Heart and soul that complements each other

Just like, just like the sun’s heat

A true love

Out of sight (but) close to the heart

If it is yearned (then) don’t stray

To where, to where will it go

Being tried, tested

Oh when awoken everything is

A border of illusions

Even if the stars wouldn’t shine anymore

As long as the love wouldn’t be betrayed

Even if my last breath is drawn

I’ll still love you

For I am sure

You’re irreplaceable

Even the tongue can be bitten (by the teeth)

Even more the love of mortals

Being swayed, swayed by the winds

Accompanying your love

Oh when awoken everything is

A border of illusions

Even if the stars wouldn’t shine anymore

As long as the love wouldn’t be betrayed

Even if my last breath is drawn

I’ll still love you

For I am sure

You’re irreplaceable

Let the consideration, love and affection be remembered

Let, let the love become ad infinitum

Even if the stars wouldn’t shine anymore

As long as the love wouldn’t be betrayed

Even if my last breath is drawn

I’ll still love you

For I am sure

You’re irreplaceable

You’re irreplaceable.

Original Malay lyrics

Bicara minda dendangan hati

Jiwa dan raga yang melengkapi

Bagaikan, bagaikan hangat mentari

Cinta yang sejati

Jauh di mata dekat di hati

Jika dirindu jangan curangi

Ke mana ke mana kan terbawa pergi

Terduga diuji

Oh bila tersedar semuanya

Sempadan ilusi

Andai bintang kan tak lagi berseri

Janji kasih yang takkan terkhianati

Andai habis nafasku yang terakhir

Masih ku cinta

Kerna ku pasti

Kau tiada pengganti

Sedangkan lidah tergigit jua

Ini kan pula cinta manusia

Melayang melayang dibawa pawana

Iringi cintamu

Oh bila tersedar semuanya

Sempadan ilusi

Andai bintang kan tak lagi berseri

Janji kasih yang takkan terkhianati

Andai habis nafasku yang terakhir

Masih ku cinta

Kerna ku pasti

Kau tiada pengganti

Biar dikenang budi kasih dan sayang

Biar biarkan cinta anta permana

Andai bintang kan tak lagi berseri

Janji kasih yang takkan terkhianati

Andai habis nafasku yang terakhir

Masih ku cinta

Kerna ku pasti

Kau tiada pengganti

Kau tiada pengganti.

My thoughts while translating...

Yet again, another translation of Siti Nurhaliza’s song hoho. It has been like what? 4 songs already and now 5 including this one. Oh well, Siti Nurhaliza’s song will always be evergreen to me. This one though is more recent, like a few years ago? Though I love the song but the lyrics is quite tricky and abstract in a way and there are a lot of omitted words and punctuations that I was dying to put in but stopped myself since I want it to be more literal. Still, in the end I did add in some words (in brackets) so that it would make more sense even if the words were not in the original lyrics haha.

First off, the title of the song “Anta Permana” are ancient Malay words that means infinity, countless or limitless. Since this phrase is mostly obsolete and unused in today’s Malay language (well at least before this song was released), I decided to use an English phrase borrowed from another language that was obsolete which is Latin’s ‘ad infinitum’. It means ‘to infinity’ or ‘without end/limit’. Though some Latin phrases are still used in context, Latin is considered as a dead language because there is no native speaker of the language anymore. So, I decided to use it~ Doesn’t this word sound poetic? Haha. Though I may ask for some poetic license because the usage of this word might be a bit different than ‘anta permana’. I’m not really sure about this since I’m not familiar to the usage of ‘anta permana’ in ancient Malay context.

There’s also a line in this song that I want to explain, “sedangkan lidah tergigit jua” translated into “even the tongue can be bitten (by the teeth)”. I included ‘by the teeth’ as an explanation to that line because the line makes a reference to a Malay proverb ‘sedangkan lidah lagi tergigit, inikan pula suami isteri.’ Literally it means ‘even the tongue can be bitten, what more husband and wife’. It mainly eludes to how a pair of husband and wife might have arguments with each other no matter how close they are just like how the teeth sometimes bit the tongue even though they’re so close. What’s important is that a few arguments here and there doesn’t mean that they’re not meant to be together. So this line probably means there might be some hiccups in their relationships but it doesn’t mean that they’ll separate.

Well, at least that’s what I understand. Owh, and please comment if you have any opinion whether it’s suitable or not to use ‘ad infinitum’ to translate ‘anta permana’ because I’m still a bit not too sure about that haha.

p.s. Ramadhan Mubarak everyone~ and please stay home! I actually finished writing this a while ago but didn't manage to post it before Ramadhan huhu. So for Ramadhan I'll probably translate Islamic songs..but now I'm still not sure what song..